he Government accepted thousands of pounds to promote fake bomb detectors despite warnings that the devices were “no better than guessing” and could be deadly.

Gary Bolton, who was jailed for seven years in August over the fraud, paid more than £5,000 to the government to enlist serving soldiers and a British ambassador to promote the devices.

The money was accepted despite the fact that in 2001 a memo from a senior Home Office scientist had been sent to Whitehall departments warning them that the device was a “useless lump of plastic” and that its use had “deadly serious” implications, the Guardian reported.

I am a journalist and author. I am a staff writer at the UK edition of WIRED magazine and in 2015 my book, Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. I created FOI Directory in 2012.